After wheat, MP now targets record rice procurement

Plans to double its rice procurement from farmers to 1.3 mn tn vs 635,000 tn last year

After purchasing a record over 9 million tonnes of wheat in 2012-2013, Madhya Pradesh is now planning to almost double its annual rice procurement from farmers to 1.3 million tonnes as against just 635,000 tonnes last year. The procurement has started in limited quantities from northern states of Punjab and Haryana.

MP along with Bihar and Maharashtra are expected to increase their annual rice procurement by the maximum quantities leaving traditional contributors of rice to central stocks like Punjab and Haryana behind.

Rice procurement in Bihar is expected to increase by 31.03% to 2.01 million tonnes in 2012-2013, while in Maharashtra it is expected to rise by 68% to 300,000 tonnes.

In contrast, rice procurement in Punjab is expected to increase by just 10% to 8.5 million tonnes, while in Haryana it is expected to be around 16.54% less than last year at 1.67 million tonnes.

Though bulk of the rice purchase for the central pool is expected to be from Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, but the year-on-year incremental rise in procurement in non-traditional procurement states is worth noting.

However, this is not likely to cause much of a problem as far as storage is concerned as unlike in case of wheat, when MPs record wheat procurement shook Food Corporation of India (FCI's) storage mechanism, rice is mostly kept with the millers. Overall, too, the storage scenario has improved and as on October 1, 2012, the Corporation has around 71 million tonnes of storage space as against 66 million tonnes of stocks in hand.

According to inputs received by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from state governments, overall across the country, the state agencies along with FCI plan to purchase around 40.13 million tonnes of rice for the central pool in 2012-2013 crop marketing season, which is around 15% more than 2011-2012.

The rice procurement season starts from October 1 every year. Already, till last week, FCI has procured around 3.38 million tonnes of paddy largely from Punjab and Haryana. “Procurement in other states will start from November onwards,” a senior FCI official said.

Bihar has also made maximum progress in opening new procurement centres in the state. According to the information provided to the Central government, Bihar plans to open around 8,500 rice procurement centres in the state this year, the highest in the country.

“As of now the overall storage position is also comfortable as bulk of the paddy is stored with rice millers,” FCI chairman Amar Singh said.  As on October 1, the government has around 71.46 million tonnes of storage space and the grains stocks are around 66 million tonnes. “The pressure will build up from April onwards, when wheat procurement season starts,” another official said.